Wayne County, NC - John Elliott
SLAVE NARRATIVES
State: Arkansas
Interviewee: John Elliott, age 80
Home South Border (pesparty of brother's estate)
"No, ma' am, I ain't got no folks. They've all died out. My son, he
may be alive. When I last heard from him, he was in Pine Bluff. But I
wrote down lots of times and nobody can't find him. Brother said, that
was before he died, that I could stay on in the place as long as I
lived. His wife come to see me some years back and she said it was that
way.
The commodity gives me milk, and a little besides. I'm expectin' to
hear if I get the pension, Tuesday. No ma'am, I ain't worked in three
years. Yes, ma'am, I was a slave. I was about eight years old when they
mustered 'em out the last time.
My daddy went along to take care of his young master. He died, and
my daddy brought his horse and all his belongings home.
You see it was this way. My mother was a run-away slave. She was
from, what's that big state off there -- Virginia -- yes ma'am, that's
it. There was a pretty good flock of them. They came into North
Carolina -- Wayne County was where JOHN ELLIOTT found them. They was in
a pretty bad way.
They didn't have no place to go and they didn't have nothing to eat.
They didn't have nobody to own' em. They didn't know what to do. My
mother was about 15. By some means or other they met up with a man
named JOHN ELLIOTT. He was a teacher. He struck a bargain with them. He
pitched in and he bought 200 acres of land. He built a big house for
MISS POLLY and BUNK and MARGARET. MISS POLLY was his sister. And he
built cabins for the black folks.
And he says 'You stay here, and you take care of MISS POLLY, and the
children. Now mind, you raise lots to eat. You take care of the place,
too. And if anybody bothers you, you tell MISS POLLY. My UNCLE MOSE, he
was the oldest. He was a blacksmith, JACOB was a carpenter. 'Now look
here, MOSE, ' says MISTER JOHN, 'you raise plenty of hogs. Mind you
give all the folks plenty of meat. Then you take the rest to MISS POLLY
and let her hook it in the smokehouse. ' MISS POLLY carried the key,
but MOSE was the head man and had dominion over the smokehouse.
They didn't get money to any extreme. But whatever they wanted, MISS
POLLY would go along with them and they would buy it. They went to
Goldsboro. That was the biggest town near us. The patrollers never
bothered any of us. Once or twice they tried it. But MISS POLLY wrote
to MR. JOHN. He'd write it all down like it ought to be. Then they
didn't bother us any more.
There was no speculation wid' em like there was with other negro
people. They never had to go to the hiring ground. MR. JOHN built a
church for My mother and the other women who was running mates with
her. And he built a school for the children. Some other colored
children tried to come to the school, too. They was welcome. But
sometimes the white folks would tear up the books of the colored
children from outside that tried to come.
Our folks stayed on and on. MR. JOHN was off teaching school most of
the time. We stayed on and on. Pretty soon there was about 150 - 200 of
us. Some of them were carpenters and some of them was this and some was
that. MR. JOHN even put in a mill. A groundhog saw mill, it was. Some
white men put it in. But it was the colored folks who run it. They all
stayed right on the farm. There wasn't any white folks about at all,
except MISS POLLY and BUNK and MARGARET.
No, ma' am, after the way it didn't make much difference. We all
stayed on. We worked the place. And when we got a chance, MR. JOHN let
us hire out and keep the money. And if the folks wouldn't pay us, MR.
JOHN would write the Federal and the Federal would see that we got our
money for what we had worked. MR. JOHN was a mighty good man to us. No
ma'am. Nobody got discontented for a long time. Then some men come in
and messed them up. Told us that we could make more money other places.
And it was true, too -- if they had let us get the money. By that time
MR. JOHN had died. BUNK had died, too, MISS MARGARET had grown up and
married. Her husband was managing the farm. He was good, but he wasn't
like MR. JOHN. So lots of us moved away.
But about not making money. Take me. I raised 14 to 16 bales of
cotton. The man who owned the land, I worked on halvers, sold it on the
Liverpool market. But he wouldn't pay me but about a third of what he
collected on my half. And I says to him, 'You gets full price for your
half, why can't I get full price for mine?' And he says, 'It's against
the rules.' And I says, 'It ain't fair!' And he says, 'It's the rules.'
So after about six years I quit farming. You can't make no money that
way. Yes -- you make it, but you can't get it.
I went to town at Pine Bluff. There I got to mixing concrete. I made
pretty good at it, too. I stayed on for some years. Then I come to Hot
Springs. My brother was along with me. We both worked and after work we
built a house. It took us four years. But it was a good house. It has
six rooms in it. It makes a good home. My brother had the deed. But his
widow says I can stay on. The folks what lives in the rest of the house
is good to me.
When I got to Hot Springs I working mixing concrete. There was lots
of sidewalks being made along about that time. Then I scatter dirt all
around where the court house is now. Then I worked at both of the very
biggest hotels. I washed. I washed cream pitchers -- the little ones
with corners that were hard to clean.
No, I ain't worked in three years. It hard to try to get along. Some
states, they pays good pensions. I can't be here long -- don't look
like I can be here long. Seems as if they could take care of me for the
few days I'm going to be on this earth. Seems like they could.
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